


They Say You Won't Come Back

by capncrystal



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Edgar and Devi are Done With Your Shit, Gen, Haunted House, Horror, I tried to avoid pairings for reasons, Jimmy is thirsty for everyone, Nonbinary Nny, Paranormal Investigators, spoopy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 15:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19478479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capncrystal/pseuds/capncrystal
Summary: More than 30 years after "The Midnight Stalker" vanished, a team of amateur paranormal investigators trying to become youtube famous bite off WAY more than they can chew when they walk into his tiny, abandoned shack.





	1. The First Floor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chokopoppo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/gifts).



> Choko I am so, so sorry this is........... LITERALLY over one year late. This is multiple chapters. I hope you enjoy this very VERY belated haunted house AU.

“Are you sure this is the place?” Edgar asked, doubt staining his voice. “Not, like, your off-brand Map App trying to get us killed?” He had been increasingly unhappy since they had left the main road that snaked through tiny Middle-California town of Luna Bay and entered the even tinier sister city of Santa Vasquez. The neighborhood was not inviting; what few houses were occupied were unkempt, with paint peeling in large flakes from the walls, wooden garage doors that looked like they were one strong kick from becoming toothpicks and lawns that were... best left unmentioned. A pack of what was either tiny dogs or average New York rats scurried in packs away from the van’s headlights as they pulled up to a shack that was inarguably the worst on the street. 

“Is that even a house?” Tenna asked, peering over Jimmy’s shoulder from the third row seats at what looked more like a standing garage than any kind of domicile. 

Jimmy shuffled through his data pad, looking up at the shack and back at the device several times with jerky motions. “This is definitely the place,” he confirmed, bouncing slightly in his seat. 

“Ew, yeah, it is,” Tenna confirmed, chin tucked into Jimmy’s shoulder. He hastily hid the screen of the data pad with a defensive look. 

Devi yanked open the sliding door of the ancient van and hopped out, immediately shaking gutter water off her leather boot with a disgusted look. “No wonder nobody bought this place. It’s like meth central out here.” She looked at Johnny as they passed and the two shared a grimace before opening the trunk and beginning to haul out equipment. 

“The Midnight Stalker has seventeen  _ confirmed  _ homicides to his record, but is rumored to be responsible for over  _ three hundred _ ,” Jimmy read out loud, lips worshipping the words as he hopped out of the van on the street side. “He used a variety of tools and techniques, never killing anyone the same way twice, but the most interesting thing is that he was never caught. The police found his shack-” 

“-Empty of all human life, but full of bloody tools and human remains.” Edgar quoted, voice twinning with Jimmy but with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, closing the driver’s side door for emphasis. “Congratulations, Jimmy. Your enthusiasm has evolved from merely creepy into outright disturbing. Remind me why we keep you along again?”

“Because I found us three successful haunted houses and made us YouTube famous,” Jimmy retorted, then gave Edgar a quick up and down with his eyes. “But if you give me a chance I can think of a few other ways to convince you to keep me around.” 

“GroooooOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSS,” Tenna wailed and shoved Jimmy until he stopped leering. “Can you like TRY to keep it in your pants tonight? For me?” 

“Eh, no promises.” Jimmy wrapped a lanky arm around Tenna and walked with her to the sidewalk. Johnny gave him a dead eyed look and laid a hand on the more obvious pocket knife tucked in their belt. It was far from the only one they carried, but Jimmy had learned over several incidences that if Johnny actually bared a blade, someone was going to fucking bleed, and that someone was usually him. “On second thought, tonight is serious business and there is NO time for flirting. None.” 

Tenna snorted. “Smooth.” 

“Like Ex-lax,” Jimmy grinned back, earning himself another shove. 

“Carry this,” Devi ordered as she shoved a boom into Tenna’s arms. Edgar was opening the case his camera went in, checking everything. Jimmy watched his hands work, losing himself for a moment in the narrow fingers and the glow of his skin under the light of the setting sun. Edgar, awkward and snarky around people, loved his fucking camera more than he loved anyone and it showed in the deftness and speed he had when inspecting his baby.

“Earth to Jimmy,” Devi called out. “You got the cues?” Jimmy looked up at her- beautiful, terrible Devi, who kept their crew running and looked damn good on camera while doing it. 

“Sure thing, toots,” Jimmy grinned, ready to duck and run in case she came at him. He got lucky with only a murderous glare (which was still enough to make his balls shrivel a little bit) and pulled out his data pad to pull up the cues they had agreed on for this filming. 

The gang were investigating their seventh haunted house, and they had traveled up from San Diego to do it. The trip wasn’t as bad as some, they told him, but this was only Jimmy’s fourth house with them and the furthest he’d ever gotten from home was the last house they had investigated. Truckee, CA was a forested wilderness up by Reno and the haunted house had  _ literally  _ been a cabin in the woods. The whole investigation had a very “we are going to die one by one and get our faces eaten by cannibals” vibe and Jimmy hadn’t liked it one bit. He’d reamed out his source for that tip, but  _ fucking Dib _ had just shrugged it off, claiming he only provided the info, he didn’t guarantee a safe ghost hunt. Jimmy had been born and raised in a concrete jungle; he was happy to never see another tree again.

Jimmy’s job in all this was general information gathering, repairing broken equipment, and making sure the filming looked ok as well as cueing Devi about things to say on camera. Tenna, Devi’s childhood friend, was studying stagecraft in college and was a damn handy sound technician. She’d brought Edgar aboard two houses before Jimmy had met them; before that, it was just Devi and Johnny, who had been trespassing haunted areas with cell phone cameras. They hadn’t exactly been famous at first, but their fan base had built up enough since then that they made an alright income from ads and donations. There was even a potential market for merch that Devi had been looking into, though Johnny and Jimmy, in rare agreement, thought was too much like selling out. 

(The world had not come to an end when they agreed, which Jimmy found promising and Johnny found disappointing.)

“You ready?” Edgar asked as Tenna helped clip her headset into place under her hair. She turned her back to the house and faced Edgar like a reporter, turning on her serious face and backing up slowly towards the house as she waited for the all-clear.

“Hang on,” Edgar tilted his head and watched with a slight frown as Johnny stalked towards the house. “Johnny, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Checking for boobie traps?” Jimmy edged closed to Edgar to see around him.

“Johnny’s never gone looking for boobies in h-  _ their _ life,” Tenna giggled. 

“Focus,” Devi snapped. She looked as if she wanted to say more, but Tenna’s smile muted into something more respectful, so after a tense moment no more was said.

Edgar fussed more with his camera until Johnny sulked back out. Jimmy backpedaled a few steps behind Edgar, standard position to hold up Devi’s cues, totally not because Johnny was aiming for the spot next to edgar Jimmy had been standing in. That might insinuate Jimmy was  _ afraid  _ of Johnny, and that just wouldn’t do. He just had a healthy respect, that’s all.

Edgar gave Devi the all-clear, and the cameras began to roll. 

~

The room was dim under the heavy dust that coated the windows. Devi, porch introduction finished, paused once she was inside to let her eyes adjust. 

“Damn, this place is a deathtrap, and not for the reasons we’re here. Edgar, are you gonna be able to pick up anything in here? I don’t want to go to night vision until we have to.” 

Edgar followed her, casting a critical eye around the place. “I’m not sure. The windows are pretty low. If we clean them, it will be really obvious and we might not get enough light from that anyway. Maybe we can use the lantern.”

Devi sucked her teeth and stepped further into the shack, gazing up at the cobwebbed ceiling. “Yeah, maybe. Where the fuck is Johnny?” 

Edgar shook his head and leaned against a far wall, opening a handheld camcorder. “Not on the ceiling,” He muttered under his breath. Devi did not dignify his snark with a reply but instead headed to another room, separated by a cased doorframe missing its door and filled with even deeper shadows.

“Johnny, what the fuck.” Her skinny friend was soviet crouching and holding what appeared to be a doll arm some demented, talentless child had taken a marker to.

“They were Pillsbury doughboys,” Johnny said without inflection. It was their “psychic” voice; the kind used by a person who was still mostly asleep, barely able to vocalize whatever their inward-turned brain decided to spit out. They moved slowly, lifting up the doll- the styrofoam figure?- the arm had once been attached to. She saw, all at once, the logic of the decorations: the arrows over the eyes, the wicked smile. It was  _ exactly  _ the kind of thing Johnny would have up in their own room. Hell, that was the kind of thing she’d first begun to like about them, when they were kids with a shared love of all things gothic horror.

“Christ, don’t tell me you’re keeping it.” Her initial smirk faded as Johnny just kept staring at it, a crease forming between their eyebrows. Abruptly they stood up and dashed the already fragile and crumbling thing into the wall, slamming it over and over as bits of dry foam flew around him. His fist was quickly the only thing hitting the wall, blood welling around his knuckled. She grabbed his arm and hauled him back, both of them flying back to the ground from the disparity in strength between her arms and Johnny’s noodly body. 

Edgar and Tenna crowded in, pausing in the doorway to take in the room: Devi and Johnny on the floor with Johnny clutching their knuckles to their chest, a pile of smashed and discolored styrofoam in the corner, blood smeared on a dent in the wall. Tenna, chalking it up to another average Tuesday, stepped in the investigate the parts of the room that  _ hadn’t  _ been assaulted. Edgar walked over to help Johnny up and let them cling to his chest. 

“This place seems…. A  _ lot  _ bigger than it looked,” Tenna said loudly. “I didn’t even think it had two rooms. I mean, it literally looks like my parent’s shed.” 

“Your parents,” Edgar said mildly, “are wealthier than the rest of our parents put together.” Devi snorted, shaking her head as if to clear herself from a daze and standing. 

“Come on. There’s nothing worth getting on camera anymore,” she muttered, glaring at the ruined foam doll. “And the light in here is even shittier than the front room. I say we leave it.” 

After a few halfhearted protestations, Tenna was convinced to leave, following Edgar who was still letting Johnny use him as an anchor. Devi remained behind to glare again at the remains of the shattered foam thing.

“...help…”

Devi blinked and looked around. “Tenna?” 

“Sup, bitch?” Tenna called back from the other room. “You changed your mind already?” 

Devi blinked slowly and walked across the tiny room, looking at the blank wall as if she might see something new. She’d definitely heard a voice, cracked and desperate but faint as if heard through a few walls.

“Devi?” Tenna poked her head in. “Earth to Devi. You aight?” 

“...Yeah,” Devi answered, reluctantly turning to her friend. 

“Cool,” Tenna gave her two thumbs up and a big grin. “Because you’ll never fucking  _ believe  _ what Jimmy just found.”


	2. The Depths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit immediately gets real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware this chapter has some vivid gore. Keep the source material in mind.

“Are you guys  _ seeing  _ this?” Jimmy asked incredulously. “This has gotta be the place he hid the bodies! I wonder if there’s still anything down here?”

“Yeah,” Devi grumbled, “like rats. Cockroaches. Raccoons, even. Did you know raccoons carry rabies?” She glared suspiciously at the trapdoor as the last glimpse of Jimmy’s spiky, greasy hair vanished down the shaft. 

“Look on the bright side,” Edgar murmured, leaning in close so he could speak softly into her ear. “He could trip down those stairs and break his neck. He’d join his apparent hero’s victims in their grisly demise.” He jerked and grinned self consciously when Tenna smacked his shoulder, rubbing the spot she’d hit as if it hurt.

“You guys are so mean to him. Just for that,” Tenna crossed her arms, “You’re next down the stairs, mister Vargas.” 

Some complaints later, Edgar found himself begrudgingly following Jimmy down the depths of the shack, followed by Devi with an industrial flashlight and Tenna with the boom. Johnny had been clinging to Edgar’s sleeve like it would anchor him to reality, but when the trapdoor was discovered he had flatly refused to go any further. Johnny had, in fact, curled up in the corner with his knees against his chest and glared at them wordlessly until they left him. It wasn’t terribly unusual behavior, but Edgar still worried a bit. 

“Hey,” Devi shone the flashlight at the bottom of the stairwell, where Jimmy sat with his back against the wall. They hadn’t heard him fall or make a sound. Edgar focused his camera, sensing a moment that would either be great for the ghost hunting or greater for the bloopers. “Jimmy, what the fuck are you doing?” The three of them paused, waiting for Jimmy to get up, laugh it off, say something. Details trickled into Edgar’s mind as he waited. There were tracks of moisture running down Jimmy’s cheeks, made more obvious by the dust they washed away; the entire house was filthy. His posture was tense, more than tense- he was clenching every muscle, eyes wide, staring at the bottom step. His face, always expressive, told a tale of horror and grief.

“Jimmy, what the hell, dude?” Tenna asked, leaning over Edgar’s shoulder from where she stood two steps above and behind him.

Jimmy looked up at her, stricken. “You guys don’t see that?” The floor in front of him was as empty as the rest of the house; dusty and stained, but bare floor and concrete steps. 

“Nnnnno?” Edgar moved down another step, panning the camera over the area in case they could pick anything up later. 

“It’s me.” Jimmy’s voice broke over the bleak horror that only he could see. “It’s my corpse, torn apart. I can see my ribs-” He choked for a second, then verbally stepped over the bile in his throat, words staggering out like a man staggering in the desert, knowing he must continue to survive though he may never find water again. “I can see my spine. Like, from the  _ front _ . It’s like I was split open down the front and hooks pulled my skin apart. It’s like- like a bug in a collection, but way more fucked up.” 

They stood in silence for a moment, unable to share in this vision but appreciative that even Jimmy could be brought low when facing his own mortality. The social pressure to brush off the moment, to make light of it, waited in the wings. Perhaps if this were their first experience with fear together, they might have mocked him. Was Jimmy on drugs? Did he hit his head? 

“Jimmy,” Devi stepped down and knelt in front of him. “There’s nothing there.” Her voice was gentle, and though she did not reach out for Jimmy, her presence was solidly there, comforting in its strength. Society’s shitty expectations could go fuck themselves. Devi had experienced enough fear to know better.

“Fuck,” Jimmy whispered and scrubbed his face with one fist. “I need- I need a minute.” 

~~

“Guys, this place is  _ huge _ ,” Tenna said, stepping into the third room they had passed since heading downstairs. It was true. At street level, the one bedroom house was hardly more than a shack, but the basement was extensive. They had already found two trap doors leading even further down.

“Do you think he dug it out himself?” Edgar wondered out loud, stepping into the room after Tenna and panning around slowly. He hoped he’d brought enough film. They hadn’t planned on a multi-level basement.

“No way. Not even if he was batshit crazy AND owned an invisible digging machine.” Tenna objected, walking up slowly to a large machine in the back of the room, “And like, the dude was obviously batshit crazy. How do you think this even works?”

Edgar was frozen. He thanked his lucky stars that he kept his panic inwards; the last thing the team needed was to lose a third member this obviously very haunted house. He glanced up at the machine, then peeked above his glasses. It was old, with straps hanging loose. A cartoonishly long, narrow lever stood in front of it. It was empty, and had been empty for years; if it hadn’t been cleaned after being used, whatever vermin infested the basement would have picked it clean in the decades following. 

He looked back into his camera. Clear as life, there he was, chunks of torso dangling perilously from limbs secured by leather straps, separated from each other by mechanical force. Blood dripped from flesh and- he swallowed back a wave of nausea- entrails, into a wide storm grate below. His own round glasses lay at the feet of the lever, one lens shattered. 

Edgar glanced over his camera again at the machine. Dry. Dusty. Corpseless.

“We should go,” he suggested mildly. 

Tenna and Devi both wheeled around to stare at him incredulously. He closed the camcorder, somehow retaining his poker face. “I’m afraid it’s not up for debate,” he continued, soft but firm, keeping a brutally tight lid over the bubbling panic inside. “Shall we?” 

“Edgar, the fuck,” Devi began, but Edgar did not hang around to see what stopped her there. He walked down the hallway towards the stairwell to fetch Jimmy. Whatever tricks the house was playing on them, it couldn’t be healthy to sit there and wallow in it. Jimmy, however, had managed to get up, and was even able to make tentative eye contact with him. Jimmy’s eyes were red and puffy- he’d never been a pretty cryer- and his eyeliner was smeared. Edgar said nothing because he didn’t know what to say. 

Jimmy scrubbed at his beaky nose with his forearm. “See anything good?” His bravado was thin, but Edgar was grateful for it.

“Nothing much,” he replied. You know, like a liar. “The basement goes down another level. Want to come with us?” 

Jimmy stood, all gangly limbs and teenage awkwardness. “Do I have a choice?” Edgar wondered whether he thought the girls would force him on, or if he merely needed to see the rest for himself. 

“This was your idea,” Edgar reminded him, not unkindly. Jimy cast him a dirty look, shook his head, and trudged on. It had been his idea, and Jimmy was not one to stop halfway, no matter the consequences. 

Edgar merely hoped he had not urged them on to something truly dangerous. 

~~

Devi wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. Bones half buried in the floor, perhaps, a skull peeking out, just enough of its hollow cavity exposed to make a cozy home for mice. Weapons, rusted and rotting. They had given at least a cursory exploration of each room and Devi had kept notes on which rooms had various torture devices remaining in them and which were simply empty save for a grate in the floor. There were plans to go in and film more of the rooms, then splice together a sort of documentary for the viewers, but that would have to come later, when- and this was a first for all of them- they weren’t so emotionally fatigued to see room after room of Hell’s leftovers. The machines they found were jerry-rigged and crumbling, but disturbingly inventive, when Devi could even tell what they were for. After the third or fourth, they had begun to get weirdly numb to it. She guessed you could only feel so much before your emotions just cocooned themselves up and hid away. 

No, when they finally found the bottom floor, it was empty. The three floors above that had been empty as well except for a rusted and ancient can of skettios, the label somehow preserved, in the corner of one of the rooms. There had been an increasing feeling of dread; Jimmy was clinging to Edgar’s shirt the way Johnny usually did, and muffled from inside Tenna’s hoodie pocket was the constant rhythmic squeaking of her skeleton toy, Spooky. There was a sensation of expectation, as if they were wandering further into the lair of a beast.

Devi tried to chalk it up to the loss of sunlight and the weight of earth above their heads. She was not particularly convincing, even to herself.

The room at the bottom was large, one vast cavern instead of two smallish rooms. Long below the point where any wiring should reasonably have gone, there were still bare bulbs hanging from chains in the ceiling of each room. It was almost absurd, as if the one who had built or dug the house had maintained a strict dungeon aesthetic. 

“The fuck,” Jimmy began, peering intensely at one of the walls. He let go of Edgar and walked over to shine his flashlight at what Devi now realized was- or had once been- a mural on the wall. Actually, it looked like the remnants of a mural, like someone had halfheartedly scrubbed it off with a filthy sponge. Ancient paint buckets stood in front of it, covered in thirty years’ worth of grime and looking half buried into the ground itself.

Before he could get close, Tenna grabbed Jimmy’s wrist. “Check it, dude,” she said, pointing up above the mural at a grate. All at once, the group saw the design: grates for blood to drain into the buckets, the flaking remnants of a mural. Nobody had cleaned the wall. It had  _ decomposed _ .

Silence reigned for several seconds before it was broken by the soft sound of a rubber boot hitting the floor. “Welp. This is the part where I nope the fuck out,” Tenna said firmly, wheeling around to head back upstairs. “We found the bottom of the place, let’s go get some McDonald’s and be grateful we don’t have tetanus.” 

“Surprise, Tenna wants us to go outside,” Edgar retorted with an attempt at a smile. A thin edge of hysteria was creeping between them. Somehow, this was worse than anything they’d already found. 

Devi scanned the room to be sure they hadn’t missed anything. She wanted to go back upstairs and get Johnny, and preferably get the hell out, but the group’s funds were running low and getting paid was a necessity, even if this place registered an 11/10 on the creepiness scale. She wasn’t sure if she was glad she’d looked or not when something metallic gleamed under her flashlight. 

Her mistake, she would think in retrospect, was in touching it. 

“...Help…” 

Devi leaned over the metal object, nudging it with the edge of her flashlight. It was a silver ankh, remarkably clean compared to the rest of the room. Picking it up was a completely rookie mistake, and Devi flashed back to every time she had groaned when someone picked up an Obviously Haunted Object and mentally apologized. The compulsion was irresistible. It was in her hand and there was no going back now. 

“Oh my god,  _ run _ !”


	3. The Void

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here there be Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Nny finally gets some fucking dialogue and Tess is pretty upset about everything except holding hands with Devi.

The room shifted, a familiar feeling to every one of the group of Southern California natives- and not a comforting feeling. Without hesitation, the five of them (wait, five?) were booking it out of the room and scrambling around each other to get back up to the higher levels.

“What is that!? Oh my god, it’s coming from the wall!” The woman was skinny like Devi, with brutally short black hair and oval glasses. Her short dress fluttered behind her as she ran. Her boots were edged in metal, midcalf doc martens with a chunkier heel than you saw on modern boots. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” Jimmy stumbled as he ran and it would have been funny if the whole situation wasn’t so terrifying. They were four (five) idiot teenagers, six (five?) floors down from a serial killer’s shack, in what basically amounted to a very deep grave during what felt to Devi’s experienced feet like at least a 3.2 earthquake. 

Edgar grabbed the back of Jimmy’s shirt in a firm grip and shoved him ahead. “Ask later,” he said, iron in his voice. 

“Holy fuck, I do  _ not  _ want to die down here,” Tenna gasped.

“Nobody’s dying.” Edgar was a moving pillar of calm in the frantic evacuation. He let the ladies climb the stairs ahead of him, glancing back to where they had come from. Whatever he saw made him rush them up, storming the stairs with his arms out to move them faster. His camera fell with a gut-wrenching crash of shattered glass and cracked plastic. Edgar did not so much as pause.

Jimmy was breathing raggedly, as much in panic as exertion. He grabbed Devi’s wrist so hard she felt something snap, and she had the feeling she’d be feeling it a lot more later. “What the fuck is chasing us?!”

“I’m sorry, I can’t stop, I’m in a hurry,” the pretty girl in the doc martens was apologetic in the way only someone running for their life from unimaginable horror can be apologetic. Sorry, I can’t save you. I need to outrun the lava spewing from Mount Vesuvius behind me. If it’s any consolation, you’ll probably die quickly.

“Who are you?” Devi asked, breathless and sweaty but still entranced.

“Tess!” The stranger answered. “Don’t slow down!”

They ran. Tenna grabbed a wall to use as an anchor as she swung around a corner. Edgar put a flat, warm hand on the small of Devi’s back, both bracing as she climbed the rickety ancient metal ladder and pushing her up so he could scramble up behind her. All too soon and not soon enough, they were racing up the stairs into the house itself, barging through the trap door so hard it cracked halfway off its hinges with a whine of vintage metal. They poured out like ants from a flooded hill, but with less grace. Whatever was behind them was pressing closer, closer, closer. 

Afterward, memories would come back to each of them in ragged bits. Edgar grabbed Tenna and pulled her close, shifting and kneeling so his body was between her and the trapdoor. Jimmy saw Johnny on the floor, cupping their left eye, curled in on themself like a dead bug. He flung himself to the floor, braced with his hands and knees on either side of Johnny, shielding them without thought of anything besides protect/don’t touch. Devi looked for the stranger who had run up with them and when she saw Tess, she forgot how to breathe. 

The front door was open but no dim streetlights shone beyond. Devi had learned of space in school- who in the world hadn’t felt the tragedy of Pluto’s reclassification?- but what she saw here all at once made her reconsider her preconceived notions of what a Void was. Space was horribly empty, dim stars shining in their own galaxies far away. Humans were small, fragile things, alone in the universe, but there was no time to dwell on sudden existential despair. Tess hung from the doorframe, fingernails clawing the wood. Her small oval glasses slid down her nose, perilously close to falling. The dress she wore fluttered around her thighs, booted feet dangling in midair. “Help!” Came the voice Devi had been hearing since they had first come inside. “Please! Help me!”

Devi felt, rather than heard, the rumble of the unseen monster behind her. If she defended herself, perhaps she had a chance. If she defended herself, Tess would fall into the airless, frozen void. If she attempted to pull Tess to freedom, they would both die on sharp teeth. Scylla, the monster, and Charybdis, the void. How did Devi choose to die? 

Devi braced herself on the doorway and grabbed Tess’ wrist. Scylla it was, and they would face the monster together. “Fuck you,” Devi spat in defiance. “Come at me, bitch!” If she was going to die, she would die fighting. This was Devi’s nature.

The shaking stopped. Edgar lifted his head and looked around, assessing. Dust fell from the roof, reflecting like pale glitter the dim light from streetlights. 

“Uh,” He cleared his throat. “Devi, were you threatening the earthquake?” 

Devi stood straight, looking at her friends in the room. “There was, uh,” she began lamely. Had there been more than just an earthquake? She had felt certain there was more. 

“There was a monster,” Tess’ voice behind her was firm, but faint. She stepped out from behind Devi, looking at the team of paranormal investigators as curiously as Edgar, Tenna, and Devi stared back at her. “I got kidnapped by a freaky little nutjob and I ended up getting chased by this… thing, with tentacles and teeth.” Tess rubbed her bare arms, more with the memory of fear than actual cold, and she jerked in surprise when Devi wrapped a leather jacket around her shoulders. The jacket Devi herself had been wearing. It was oddly touching. Tess wasn’t used to people being  _ nice  _ to her. 

Edgar and Tenna glanced at each other. The girl had come in from outside, hadn’t she? 

Jimmy shifted so he was kneeling besides Johnny, more concerned with Nny’s obvious urgent distress than with Devi’s Lesbian Ghost Romance ten feet to his left. He hesitated with his hand just above Nny’s hair, wanting nothing so much as to pick his friend up and soothe their pain but knowing exactly how well that would go over. Johnny’s eyes fluttered open, staring blankly ahead before rolling to look at him without moving their face. 

“Hey,” Jimmy said softly. 

Johnny blinked. They twitched their fingers, then whirled up into a crouch, facing Jimmy, obviously ready to throw down. Jimmy stayed still until Johnny either decided to stab him or relax, trying to mimic Edgar’s steadying presence. 

Johnny relaxed and tilted their head. “You didn’t touch me,” they observed. 

“Nah,” Jimmy agreed. “You don’t like it. Hey, your eye’s bleeding.” Frowning, Jimmy leaned closer to observe, but Johnny only leaned back and cupped their eye again. 

“I have a headache,” they said simply, and stood up.

“YOU.” The entire room startled at Tess’ booming shout. She marched over, heavy boots clomping the floor, aiming directly for Johnny. Devi and Edgar grabbed her at the same time, seeing the intent she had and trying to avoid the bloodshed that would occur in a fight between Johnny and their strange new friend. 

“You complete asshole! You kidnapped me! Jesus christ, you tortured Dillon! You fucking  _ monster _ !” Tess’ boots scraped on the floor, leaving black rubber scuffs on the filthy wood. She was lunging forward towards Johnny, her hands balled into fists, held back by the combined efforts of Devi and Edgar while Tenna, never the violent sort, pressed her back to the wall. “What the fuck was that monster! How the fuck are you still alive?!”

Johnny stepped back, tilting their head to look at Tess curiously. Their hand still cupped their left eye. Jimmy stepped besides Johnny, protective, foolish. 

“I haven’t ever met you before,” Johhny told Tess calmly. “I’m sorry I look like whoever did this to you, but I can assure you, the resemblance is entirely superficial.” 

“Fuck that!” Tess spat, both verbally and physically, a glob of spittle landing at Johnny’s feet. He made a disgusted face and stepped back. “You even talk the same! You kidnapped me and you kept me in your shitty basement and you quoted The Fly at me!” 

There was more of the group looking at each other, nonplussed. Jimmy’s eyebrows came together in thought. “What year is it, lady? What year were you kidnapped?”

Tess told him. The group looked at each other again. Devi hesitantly corrected Tess. There were protests, another round of insults directed at Nny, and finally the six of them were calm enough that they were able to let Tess go in order to figure out the logistics of having manifested a murder victim from three decades in the past.

“We have the internet on our phones now,” Tenna informed Tess gleefully, having pulled up youtube.

“Well, some of us do,” Edgar muttered, receiving an elbow to the gut in response. “OK, everyone on the planet has internet on their phones,  _ except Edgar _ , who is actually a 70 year old space alien in a young-person mask.” Tenna and Edgar glared at each other for a moment. Devi ignored them and caught Tess’ attention. 

“Come with us,” she invited quietly. “We can figure things out at the hotel.” Tess looked back at her with something like suspicion, but tentatively put her hand into Devi’s. 

The addition of Tess the Ghost Girl did not end up pushing them over the line into Youtube Famous. It did, however, boost their fan group to a respectable number, and calmed Devi in a way she hadn’t known she needed. Johnny gave Jimmy the most awkward hug of him life, and Edgar gave Jimmy a much less awkward hug for not being creepy. Jimmy immediately ruined it by trying to keep the hug going for too long. Tess eventually gave up trying to murder Johnny. Tess continued making them go outside whenever possible.

And they all lived more or less happily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I came SO CLOSE to a Tenna/Edgar pairing just to see the look on everyone's faces. SO CLOSE. IT didn't happen but you need to know that it came SO CLOSE.


End file.
